He stood silent a long moment, searching her face with his eyes. She was so cold, so white and wraithlike, and her voice was so strange, so impersonal, that he was almost ready to believe that she was some one else. It was the voice of a woman without a soul—a calm, ruthless voice which sought to wound, to injure or destroy. It had been on his lips to speak of the past, to translate into the words the pain at his heart. He had been ready to take one step forward, to seize her in his arms and compel her by the might of his tenderness to return the love that he bore her. If he had done so then, perhaps fortune would have favored him—have favored them both; for in the hour of their greatest intolerance women are sometimes most vulnerable. But he could not. Her words chilled him to insensibility, scourged his pride and made him dumb and unyielding.
“If that is your wish,” he said quietly, “I will do my best to respect it. I’d like you to remember one thing, though, and that is that this meeting was not of my seeking. If I’ve detained you, it was with the hope that perhaps you might be willing to listen to the truth, to learn what a dreadful mistake you have made, of the horrible wrong you have done——”
“To you?”
“No,” sternly. “To Nina Jaffray. Think what you like of me,” he went on with sudden passion. “It doesn’t matter. You can’t make a new pain sharper than the old one. But you’ve got to do justice to her.”
“What is the use, Mr. Gallatin?”
“It’s a lie that they’ve told, a cruel lie, as you’ll learn some day when it will be too late to repair the wrong you’ve done.”
“I don’t believe that it was a lie, Mr. Gallatin. A lie will not persist against odds. This does. You’ve done your duty. Now please let me go.”
“Not yet. You needn’t be afraid of me.”
“Let me pass.”